French Louisiana

French Louisiana was an administrative district of the New France colony of France that existed from 1682 to 1762 and from 1802 to 1803. Louisiana once covered the Midwest region of the United States, spanning from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachians to the Rockies. Louisiana was named for King Louis XIV of France, under whom exploration of the area began, but the area was not fully developed due to a lack of human and financial resources. In 1762, Louisiana was ceded to Spain as a reward for Spanish participation in the Seven Years' War, but Spain traded Louisiana for Tuscany in an 1802 treaty with the French Consulate during the French Revolutionary Wars In 1803, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana to the United States for a mere $11,250,000 in the Louisiana Purchase, using the money to finance his Grande Armee.